Back to the future, or I’ve seen the past and it works! Fine Gael/Labour and a strategy for winning the next election… Part 2
Read more about: Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Green Party, Irish Election, Irish Politics, Labour Party, Sinn Féin 
Okay, the last post on this subject was addressing the need for some bluesky thinking on the means by which Fine Gael and Labour might take on Fianna Fáil at the next election, and the suggestion was that the big tent should be extended further in line with the Inter-Party Coalitions of the 1940s and 1950s.
It’s a great idea and I’ve been heartened by the fulsome support for it from all points of the political spectrum… well, not quite…
Since then, we’ve had today’s RedC poll, which continues the downward trend for the opposition with FG now on 23% and Labour on 10%, with FF alone on 39%. Even if we throw the Greens into the mix, well, we’ll see how the numbers come out anyhow.
But I have another idea.
One so counter-intuitive that it can’t happen, can it? What if Fine Gael and the Labour Party and the Greens were willing to take the big step, one taken some four months earlier in Northern Ireland if (and it remains a big if) Sinn Féin and the DUP sit together in government. What if they were to say to Sinn Féin, “we do not entirely consider you suitable for government at this point, but as you now sit in government with the DUP, we will accept support from you for a minority government or coalition and in return for that support, we will work the institutions established under the GFA and underpinned by the St. Andrews Agreement as fully as we can?” It’s inconceivable, isn’t it—on both sides—arguably insulting to SF, and perhaps only those with a circuitous political background—such as myself—can suggest it with a straight face, but I have to ask, why not?
Of course, I know the answer to that. There is a visceral antipathy on the part of both FG and SF to each other—notwithstanding a number of “technical” political arrangements in local government—one largely shared by the Labour Party. I find that understandable on one level, some of that antipathy framed my political makeup in the past and has always left me cautious about SF, but also curious on another. After all, if one takes the logic of the Good Friday Agreement, the objective was always to bring together Republicanism and Unionism in a peaceful and agreed context. Sinn Féin, in the context of a decommissioned IRA, was inevitably going to move further into politics; where else could it go? And as it did so, it was going to become more popular rather than less (if one were to judge by the soft SF vote that characterized elections in the North throughout the period of armed conflict). The population within the Six Counties was to make their own minds up about their representation. They clearly have. It’s not music to my ears how it’s gone on the Unionist side, but if a deal is struck between Paisley and McGuinness, so be it. Yet here, where the actual sacrifices made during thirty years of conflict have been so much less on all sides, and the injuries while no less painful and I think particularly of those Gardai who lost their lives at the hands of PIRA, vastly less often inflicted. Yet, we ask that SF and DUP sit around a table, we demand that in the context of decommissioning and a lack of criminality that they do a deal. And down here? The rhetoric from some FG members on P.ie and elsewhere is as if it’s 1986.
Let me be a little bit honest—and perhaps give an example of hypocrisy in politics—mine. The first election I gave a preference to SF (and full disclosure: I have never given any more than a preference if only because I have a Republican Socialist alternative in the constituency I live in and Socialist alternatives (of Labour, Green and other stripes) in the previous ones) was in 1997. I remember the night before actually lying awake thinking about the ramifications of that preference. My judgement was—in all it’s narcissistic glory—that I might be assisting in the development of a peaceful transition by that party to exclusively democratic politics. Yet, hold on. Was this me, the former member of a political party that had never seen it’s own paramilitary wing decommission, had never really enquired into the nature of that wing—had, indeed, ignored Vincent Browne’s excellent exposes in Magill during the 1980s—and yet I had not merely voted for them, but done it time and again and encouraged all I knew to vote for them. Better yet, Fine Gael had, admittedly with some prompting—all of 24 months worth—encouraged former members of that party, those at the highest level of that party, to join them and the Labour government in power in 1994. Better yet, the Labour Party had encouraged those same members and the successor party to join them in a single organisation in 1999. And it is that very same Fine Gael who is working on shared proposals and platforms with those very same people. Incidentally, neither do I recall any particular worries on the part of Fine Gael in the 1990s about former and influential members of the Workers’ Party working with them as advisors and consultants, although frankly knowing the individuals concerned, I’d have done the job for less money and perhaps twice as well.
Would a Sinn Féin linked to an IRA that has been through an internationally-recognised decommissioning process, that has overseen the essential decommissioning of that IRA, that has accepted the constitutional status of the two polities on the island as underwritten by international treaty, and that is on the brink of accepting and overseeing the PSNI, be a less legitimate partner than Sean MacBride and Clann na Poblachta, or my erstwhile comrades who never had to—or never saw the necessity to—go through the unpleasantness of decommissioning at all? Really? And we think we were wrestling with ethical quandries the last number of weeks over payments and Manchester?
I don’t believe for one minute that either Fine Gael or Sinn Féin would countenance working with each other—even in the hands-off way I suggest—not at present anyhow. It is in neither of their perceived interests, particularly that of SF. For Fine Gael, it is disturbing how much part of their self-image is bound up in antagonism to Sinn Féin. This is problematic, if only because so much of Irish politics, including their good selves, is littered with the debris of various incarnations of Sinn Féin impacting with constitutional politics. But it’s also problematic as the Troubles recede into history. In the not-too-distant future, cohorts of voters will appear with no more interest in who did what when than I have in the minutiae of the Lynch governments. “Hey, that’s not the same thing at all! Look what Sinn Féin and PIRA supported/did,” I hear. And perhaps it isn’t, and perhaps the charge is accurate. But the past is the past and ultimately everything winds up in it. Ultimately, for all the loathing, Fine Gael will wind up with a unique selling point that is largely irrelevant as Sinn Féin slips into the mantle of another left of left of centre party, a sort of slightly harder edged alternative to Labour.
For Sinn Féin such an arrangement is equally tricky. Hard to square left of left of centre oppositional Republican politics with support—even at arms length—for Fine Gael. But then, if the issue is power and influence and the maintenance of the St. Andrew’s Agreement or the GFA, then external support for Fine Gael should be easier than support for the DUP in a power sharing executive, shouldn’t it?
In any case, with my realistic hat on again as distinct from my self-indulgent and provocative hat—or perhaps just the pointy one with the big D on the front of it—I can see a different future develop. One where Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats just barely—possibly with the help of some of the Independents—make it back in in 2007. One where Sinn Féin, excluded by FG/Labour at the election and basking in their marginal status gain seats and become an even stronger oppositional voice. One where they are nicely lined up for coalition with Fianna Fáil—and the Greens with who they work reasonably well—at any point subsequently, but most likely in 2012, riding high on the successful implementation of the Northern Institutions. One where they, not the Labour Party, are positioned as the growing left opposition throughout the next five years. (After all, it took a mere fifteen years from the OIRA’s “ceasefire” to the widespread acceptance by the electorate of the Workers’ Party. Already we’re twelve or so years beyond the first PIRA cessation). And ultimately Fine Gael will be left facing an unpalatable reality that they too have a date with destiny and will have to deal with Sinn Féin, Irish political history already shows that. So I’m—only half-jokingly—suggesting we cut out the intervening and, frankly, politically useless intervening ten years and let’s cut to the chase.
How badly do Fine Gael and Labour want to see Fianna Fáil out of office?
Option one—broaden the tent—is good, but only if they’re really, really serious.
How badly do Fine Gael and Labour want to see Fianna Fáil out of power?
I don’t know I think Sinn Fein will go the way or the workers party and once they lose the glamour of an private army they will disappear. There was a report in the indo today suggestiong that the SDLP have passed Sinn Fein in the north
the current government parties wont be able to bash the shinners in the coming months it will be gags in gobs all round
you know what mc dowell usually mainlines in -youre this youre that and youre plain bloody evil
if the shinners do the deal they will have gained a lot of respect and then will threaten a few more seats ff and perhaps labour as well
and then the cat will be among the pigeons electorally
the shinners wont disappear if they give up their oul sins
i agree the opposition should get out of their tent and do a deal before the others do
but, they are too damn conservative
what are we looking at – fianna fail forever -im looking out the window as i type and im thinking of jumping !!!!!!!!!!
I wouldn’t jump just yet mollie. Eight months is a long old time.
I know what you mean Simon, but, re the WP, I wonder if the smell of cordite wafts away quite that quickly, indeed the significant WP gains were all from 87 onwards, long long after there had been any OIRA activity in the south. I’d be highly dubious that the SDLP will sustain any slight gains. Particularly once the institutions are back up and running.
What if they were to say to Sinn Féin, ‘we do not entirely consider you suitable for government at this point, but as you now sit in government with the DUP we will accept support from you for a minority government or coalition and in return for that support we will work the institutions established under the GFA and underpinned by the St. Andrews Agreement as fully as we can’?
Isn’t the corollary of that “if you don’t support us we won’t support or implement the institutions established under the GFA”?
Is that a wise message for Fine Gael and Labour to be sending out? They may not intend for that to be the message, but Fianna Fáil certainly be happy to portray them as being more Unionist than Paisley. It just adds to the “safe pair of hands vs. inexperienced alternative” impression.
There was a report in the indo today suggestiong that the SDLP have passed Sinn Fein in the north
I wouldn’t give much credence to opinion poll results in Northern Ireland. I’d give absolutely no credence to anything published in the Sunday Independent.
That’s a very good point Paddy, but I guess I’m simply looking at the situation after the election when the possibility or otherwise of the numbers breaking in such a way that FG/Labour and possibly Greens might need to depend on another to make up the numbers comes into play. I agree entirely, if that were the way the offer was couched, i.e. otherwise we’ll screw it up, particularly if it were said prior to an election then they’d be in even deeper trouble on this issue than they already are…
And you’re absolutely right as well, that safe pair of hands vs. inexperience is an argument we can expect more and more of over the next seven or eight months.
Still, I’m just throwing out these ideas in a helpful and friendly sort of way. No doubt down at FG head office they’re already looking for my number…
the shinners have it every way bar flying
they appeal to voters in rural areas -the workers party didnt or labour for that matter and they find support in urban areas too.
more than that they encourage people to vote -once anyway !!!which is good
for people who dont feel valued –
Time is marching on and it isnt unusual in marginalised areas as journalists describe them for these people to stand up for themselves and then the taper is lit theres no going back
In city apartment developments built by dublin city council you have residents on house committees aided and abbetted by a rep from the city council having a lot of say in the place where they live -there is nothing like the politicization of so called ordinary people – and then you realise how extraordinary they are when they get their act together.
The Shinners are very good in situations like that -they dont loose the common touch -dear god so many public reps become bored and boring very quickly
I felt sick when i heard that sodding poll but im feeling a little more hopeful now -i think the greens are my great white hope -they are so relevant concerning big environmental issues which this government is watery on and which need loadsa bottle …….
The Shinners are very good in situations like that -they dont loose the common touch -dear god so many public reps become bored and boring very quickly
I am not sure mollie. Look at Mary Lou . She is doing very badly in a seat that Nicky Keoheo nearly took. Sinn Fein is all about the local rep. I am from a rural constituency that is not entirely non-republican. And if Sinn Fein mananged to come sixth in a 3 seat constituency I would be very surprised.
I don’t think there is that great of a Sinn Fein vote, I think it is a big Ferris, Caoighlan etc vote.
While I think your article is a very good analysis of attitudes within Fine Gael and Labour towards Sinn Féin, the more I think about your idea, I’m afraid the worse it seems from a Fine Gael/Labour point of view.
First of all, I don’t see what’s in it for Sinn Féin. The offer could only happen if the numbers don’t add up for a FG/Lab/Green arrangement, and more palatable alternatives for support (Independents or what’s left of the PDs) don’t make up the numbers sufficiently. In that case, the likelihood is that a Fianna Fáil-based arrangement could make up the numbers with Sinn Féin support, so it’s unlikely that SF will have only one alternative on offer.
In that case, the only real way in which the Rainbow could interest Sinn Féin would be by promising to “out-green” Fianna Fáil in some way. Simply promising to implement agreements already entered into by an Irish Government will have no attraction for Sinn Féin – Fianna Fáil will do that much anyway, and will do so without making a compliment of it.
Secondly, putting that sort of offer to Sinn Féin threatens Fine Gael and Labour’s own support – both the “no Shinners in Government” section who would be horrified by the offer being made in the first place (imagine the reaction of Brian Hayes or Conor Cruise-O’Brien), and a softer section of support who might be unnerved by what they would see as Fine Gael and Labour playing politics with the GFA.
Thirdly, it gives Fianna Fáil the chance to make their own offers to Sinn Féin – and if an arrangement was made, then Fine Gael and Labour couldn’t then credibly criticise Fianna Fáil for successfully doing something that they’d tried to do but failed.
If the only way of getting a Fine Gael/Labour/Greens government into office is this kind of cobbled-together arrangement, then it may be time for Labour to look again at a resumption of the coalition that they scuppered in December 1994. It might involve sacrificing the party leader, but I think that would be a sacrifice well worth making from Labour’s point of view.
Look at Mary Lou . She is doing very badly in a seat that Nicky Keoheo nearly took.
Simon, out of curiosity, what are you basing that assertion on?
If it’s the article in this month’s Magill, I’d not give any more credence to something publised there than to reports of polls in the Sunday Independent.
After all, Kehoe himself only stood for the first time in 2002, replacing Christy Burke who had been working the ground in Dublin Central for donkey’s years.
I guess Paddy the only rationale would literally be, Anyone but FF, a situation the current polls appear to offer, although theres still time for some turnaround, but I think you’re right, short of that what’s in it for FG and Labour? And yet, that sort of dynamic was strong enough in 1948 to give the first Inter-party coalition which was surely as diverse, if not more so… Moreover for those of us who recall 1992 where it took weeks before the government finally coalesced I suspect horse-trading between all parties would be at a premium.
I don’t believe it though…
mollie, the Greens are very good on certain things, but I wonder if they have the weight of ideology or indeed support to travel far enough at this stage.
the greens actually believe in something -something which is being spoken about every day
the bloody environment
so whether you live in a rural town and theyve turned off the water becuse its been polluted for the first time or the sixth time it must make people think or even just livid
the production of food relevant to many
waste management / the cost of it/ incineration
all these weighty subjects were once an interest of the greens only
many thought they were nutters
then the others decided to pretend they were interested too
but the lack of action on many of these issues has caught up on us and they are no longer debating or dinner party talk -theyre immediate theyre real
the greens are not tainted with anything
not with history or splits ( ive just touched wood !!!)
theyre clean decent untainted – god they sound like a church
and theyre rising in the charts !!!!!!!!!
Simon, out of curiosity, what are you basing that assertion on?
Again a poll. In the Daily Mail put her on 6%
FG will never talk to SF I feel. Hostility to SF is too entrenched in that party and their traditional electorate would be horrified. This will help keep them in Opposition and that can only be a good thing. Also FG’s big-business backers would balk at an alliance with SF which is hostile to multinational investment in Ireland and described private property in a document some time ago as “an instrument of oppression of the working-class”. An alliance with SF would lead to an haemorraging of FG votes to the PDs. At the same time I doubt SF would want anything to do with them after Bruton’s opposition of their participation in All-Party Talks in his term of office and the perceived cryptounionism and West-Britishness of FG. Many voters – including some Opposition voters – regard FG as too sympathetic to Northern Nationalists – bordering sometimes on hostility to their aspirations. That won’t endear SF to them.
I suppose the question that is most likely to occur is will SF be neutral in a vote for Taoiseach between Ahern and Kenny, or will they vote against one while abstaining in the vote for the other?
I think there’s a very important difference between being in Government in the North and being in Government in the South. In the North there’s no Collective Responsibility. What the DUP Minister for Health does can be denounced just as easily by a Shinner Minister for Education as by someone on the sidelines. That can’t happen in the South, because the Minister for Education is equally responsible for the Health Department as the Minister for Health (at least in the legal/constitutional sense).
To be in Government with SF in the South, one would have to share responsibility for their actions in Government. That may be a step too far for anyone other than Fianna Fáil right now. Another twenty or thirty years will probably be required for Fine Gael & the PDs to accept them barring some desperate need for their support sooner than that (á la 1994 acceptance of DL by FG). Labour will most likely end up accepting them sooner than that, but don’t underestimate the animosity between the two parties in the meantime. It’ll be ten years at least before Labour would be willing to sit in Government with Sinn Féin, and that would need to be ten years without a single indiscretion on SF’s part.
Two thoughts, Daniels question is very pertinant to the issue at hand. A lot rides on the outcome. Remember that in the early 1980s the WP abstained (as I recall on a vote for Haughey).
Keith, a couple of things intrigue me about the time frames you propose. Why ten years for Labour and 20 or 30 years for Fine Gael? And surely my post above is predicated on just such a desperate need as was evident in 1994 – aka the necessity for a change at the top. How come DL was satisfactory as a partner in 1994 but not in 1992? What difference occured over the intervening two years.
Regarding your points about the Government in the North I wonder if what you say is absolutely correct. My read of where the Agreement is being driven is one where a degree of collective responsibility is implicit in the workings of it. The text of the GFA seems to make it fairly clear that only by broad consensus could decisions be made – as with the establishment of all-island bodies and it’s hard to envisage SF adopting the sort of knocking role you propose if it actually wants movement on those issues. So de facto an element of collective responsibility emerges.
More to the point even if what you cite is absolutely correct, is that issue greater than say the fact of DUP and SF Ministers working together and exercising executive power within the six counties – which is de facto their role, and how does that actually debar them from power in the South even if true? What principle is at stake here?
DL didn’t have the votes in 92 for the government to be stable they and Labour did in 94.
True, but prior to the election in 1992 FG made it very clear they did not regard DL as a potential partner should the numbers come right, so what happened to change their minds as regards the suitability of them in the meantime?